Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Snowshoe who wrote (149421)	6/27/2019 5:35:06 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 218043

watch this space, and should it go pear shape, the gate to Teotwawki opens sooner, as the universe cleaves into two parallel schemas very exciting, and ultra bullish after hiccup, especially for hong kong, albeit not.priced-in https://time.com/5615563/huawei-us-patents-block-trump-china/ The Brief Newsletter (SHENZHEN, China) — Chinese tech giant Huawei warned Thursday a U.S. senator’s proposal to block the company from pursuing damages in patent courts would be a “catastrophe for global innovation.” The proposal comes amid mounting U.S. action against Huawei, the biggest maker of switching gear for phone carriers, amid tension over Beijing’s technology ambitions. The company has been devastated by the Trump administration’s decision to impose restrictions on its access to American chips for smartphones and other components and technology. Disrupting Huawei’s access to U.S. patent courts would threaten the intellectual property system that supports technology development, said Song Liping, the company’s chief legal officer. The proposal by Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, followed reports Huawei Technologies Ltd. is asking for $1 billion from American phone carrier Verizon for use of the Chinese company’s patents. “If such a legislative proposal were to be passed, it would be a catastrophe for global innovation. It would have terrible consequences,” Song said at a news conference. He said it would “break the foundation of IP protection.” American officials accuse Huawei of facilitating Chinese spying, a charge the company denies, and see it as a growing competitive threat to U.S. technology industries. Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, said this month it has cut its project sales by $30 billion over the next two years due to curbs on access to American chips and other components. He said smartphone sales outside China will fall 40%. Huawei’s U.S. sales of network gear evaporated after a congressional panel labeled the company a security threat in 2012 and told phone carriers to avoid it. But the Chinese company has a patent portfolio it licenses to manufacturers and carriers. Song gave no confirmation of how much Huawei wants from Verizon or the basis of its claims. “Intellectual property litigations are matters that should be heard and ruled on by courts. They should not be politicized,” he said. Huawei, founded in 1986, has China’s biggest corporate research and development budget at $15 billion in 2018. The company is a leader in developing next-generation telecoms technology. On Wednesday, a U.S. federal court jury in Texas ruled Huawei stole trade secrets from a Silicon Valley company but awarded no damages, saying the Chinese company didn’t benefit. The jury rejected Huawei’s claims that Cnex Labs Inc. co-founder Yiren Huang stole its technology while he worked at a Huawei subsidiary. Huawei’s head of intellectual property, Jason Ding, said the company was studying the verdict and deciding what to do next. Asked about a report by Bloomberg News that some Huawei researchers had published papers with Chinese military personnel over the past decade, Song said the company wasn’t aware of its employees publishing research as private individuals. “We don’t customize products or do research for the military,” said Song. “We are not aware of employees publishing papers. We don’t have projects of that kind.” Contact us at editors@time.com.

To: Snowshoe who wrote (149421)	6/27/2019 8:26:56 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 218043

Re <<thanks to Donald Trump>> the concensus view, per imperatives give rise to solutions, is, for example ... scmp.com US blacklisting of China’s supercomputing giants ‘will only accelerate self-reliance drive’ China will need to step up development of more supercomputers to handle growing requirements of industries, tech authorities say Celia Chen Published: 6:00am, 28 Jun, 2019 The Trump administration’s move to add China’s supercomputing companies to its trade blacklist will only accelerate the domestic industry’s efforts to become more self-reliant, said Chinese experts who gathered for a conference in the country’s hi-tech heartland of Shenzhen. Last week, the US Commerce Department added Sugon, the Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology, Higon, Chengdu Haiguang Integrated Circuit and Chengdu Haiguang Microelectronics Technology to the so-called Entity List over concerns about the military applications of the supercomputers these firms were developing. “The Entity List will drive China to develop its own technology and be self-reliant on supercomputers,” said Feng Shengzhong, director of the National Supercomputing Centre in Shenzhen, in a group interview on Thursday at the 2019 World Conference on Intelligent Computers held in the southern Chinese coastal city bordering Hong Kong. That list, which is maintained by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) under the Commerce Department, identifies organisations and individuals believed to be involved, or pose a significant risk of becoming involved, in activities contrary to America’s national security or foreign policy interests. Those on the list are effectively barred from buying hardware, software and services from American hi-tech suppliers. “In the long run, this [US trade ban] will benefit China’s supercomputer development,” Feng said. The latest US action against those Chinese supercomputer firms has expanded the trade and tech war between the world’s two largest economies into another critical hi-tech sector. Supercomputers, which have become an emblem of technological might, are traditionally used for complicated, computer-intensive tasks like mapping the human genome, weather forecasting and nuclear blast simulation. These are now widely adopted in commercial research, from massive data-crunching and energy exploration to creating video games and artificial intelligence, which is a field in which China has become a close rival to the US . The addition of the five Chinese supercomputer firms – along with their numerous aliases – also increased the number of entries under mainland China in the Entity List, which is subject to ongoing review and revision by the BIS. There were 143 mainland China entries at the end of May , after telecommunications equipment maker Huawei Technologies and 68 of its non-US affiliates were added by the US government. Liang Yongsheng, director of the science and technology innovation committee of Shenzhen, said at the conference that the Trump administration’s efforts to throttle China’s technology companies would spur further innovation. He suggested “a top-down approach to semiconductor development”, in which the central government draws up a national plan that would be supported by cities across the country. To be sure, China is on a par with global peers in the field of chip design. An estimated 10-year gap , however, exists in terms of manufacturing integrated circuits that are used to power a wide range of products, from smartphones, tablets and laptops to supercomputers and spacecraft. The stakes are getting higher for China as the country’s telecommunications carriers prepare to deploy next-generation 5G mobile networks , according to Feng. “The roll-out of 5G [services] will generate much more data, so it requires the development of more supercomputers,” Feng said. “Without supercomputers, there is no big data and artificial intelligence.” Earlier this year, China planned a multibillion-dollar investment to upgrade its high-performance computer systems to regain leadership after the US took top spot for the fastest supercomputer in 2018, ending China’s five-year dominance. Chinese authorities, however, decided not to enter the country’s newest high-performance system, Shuguang, in the latest Top500 ranking of the world’s fastest supercomputers, which is a list announced twice a year, to help ease tensions amid the ongoing trade dispute with the US. Shuguang, located in the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, is capable of performing calculations at more than 200 petaflops. A petaflop refers to one quadrillion (or a million billion) calculations per second. China continued to lead the world with 219 supercomputers ranked in the latest Top500 list, compared with 116 from the US.

To: Snowshoe who wrote (149421)	7/2/2019 12:19:46 AM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 218043

Being methodical I tried to duplicate the original search but failed, and kept at it … and gad, the scrubbing-bot is very good, perhaps because the actors are democrats from Tennessee … and clicking on the stories gets you fuck-all. Nice work team Google. Go Go Go Tennessee on clean energy! nashvillepost.com Silicon Ranch to build state’s biggest solar projectAbout $100M will be invested in TVA contract Downtown-based solar energy venture Silicon Ranch has bought 330 acres just north of Memphis after securing a 20-year Tennessee Valley Authority power-purchase agreement. Silicon Ranch, which is run by former Tennessee Economic and Community Development commissioner Matt Kisber, will build a 53-megawatt solar project at the Naval Support Activity Mid-South site in Millington. (A rendering is above.) In addition to its land purchase, the company also will lease 72 acres of base land from the Navy. The project will be the largest of its kind in Tennessee, featuring about 580,000 panels and an investment value of about $100 million. “TVA is committed to providing renewable energy in a way that best serves our local power company customers and the nine million people of the Tennessee Valley,” said Van Wardlaw, the utility’s executive vice president and chief external relations officer. “This solar project supports our commitment to a diversified and cleaner energy portfolio, which includes energy efficiency and competitively priced renewable energy.” Silicon Ranch bought its 330 acres from the Millington Industrial Development Board. In addition to the Department of the Navy, Memphis Light Gas and Water also is involved in the project. Launched in 2008, Silicon Ranch is chaired by former Gov. Phil Bredesen. The company in 2014secured a $140 million investment from a group led by Greystone Infrastructure Fund of Canada.

To: Snowshoe who wrote (149421)	7/2/2019 12:21:44 AM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 218043

Further investigation shows that trump tariff doing good for China solar industry Putting the little guys on both sides of the Pacific pond out of their misery, picking the winners who are able to continue engaging with each other, pushing team China into Philippines and Mexico, and building up team America energy independence … and Duterte wins big solarphilippines.ph … as does Mexico wins big, also, and paying for the wall mexico-now.com The trade war is not just necessary, but fantabulous, speeding up the arrival of Globalisation 2.0 Reloaded Am guessing the tax home of the Philippines and Mexican ventures far more likely to be in HK than anywhere else, per ultra bullish conjecture leading to premise and onward to theory qz.com Two companies petitioned for Trump’s solar tariffs—now they’re both out of business Michael J. CorenJune 18, 2019 Masdar Lots of electricity. Not too many jobs.Two companies begged the US government to raise tariffs on imported solar panels in 2017. “Stop the bleeding,” imploredpanel maker Suniva in its petition (pdf)to the US International Trade Commission (ITC), joined by a second manufacturer, SolarWorld. Domestic solar panel manufacturers, they argued, needed import taxes to “grow and thrive.” These tariffs, Suniva insisted, would generate at least 114,800 new jobs in the US. They got their wish. The US trade commission ruledin 2017 that domestic solar manufacturers had been harmed by cheap imports. The next year, the Trump Administration slapped a 30% taxon imported solar cells and panels (also known as modules). Today, both firms out of business. SolarWorld Americas, actually a US subsidiaryof a German company, was boughtout of bankruptcy by SunPower in October. Chinese-owned Suniva filedfor bankruptcy this month. The company told a judge it plans to exit the solar panel business as soon as it offloads its inventory of panels stockpiled in warehouses. The saga infuriates people like Constantino Nicolaou, CEO of Massachusetts-based PanelClaw, a 35-person company that sells mounting systems for solar panels. In 2017, Nicolaou joined more than two dozen other solar equipment firms to stop the tariff. In a letter (pdf)to the ITC, they argued the tariffs would disastrously undermine “the cost-competitiveness of solar…and reversing its high growth trajectory. We would be forced to cut our operations, seriously endangering manufacturing jobs at our factories.” Nicolaou said he felt the US was waging a trade war that was impossible to win, and the tariff hawks in the Trump administration refused to listen to business leaders. “Mexico, India, China, Europe—we’ve picked a fight with the whole world,” he told Quartz. Many of Nicolaou’s concerns have come to pass. Solar installations stalled after peaking at more than 14 gigawatts (GW) of power added in 2016, according toenergy research firm Wood Mackenzie. The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) estimates that nearly $8 billion in new solar investments capable of generating 7 GW were lost because of the tariffs, along with the loss of 9,000 jobs due to layoffs or hiring freezes, far less than the expected increase in manufacturing jobs. Only about 2,000 (pdf)of the 260,000 solar jobs in the US are in cell and module manufacturing; the rest involve supply chain equipment, installation, and other services. Wood Mackenzie U.S. Solar Market Insight 2018 Year in Review US solar panel installation estimates 2010-2019The industry is now recovering, led by an uptick in residential sector installations, Wood Mackenzie reports, but it’s slow going. Nicolaou said he’s now making his first new hire in two years, rather than the 13 jobs he had planned before the tariffs. The loss of demand cut deep into his balance sheet: After the import taxes took effect, steel and aluminum duties sliced 20% off PanelClaw’s cash flow, and nearly a quarter of its solar projects were delayed or canceled. “[The tariffs] didn’t kill us but it did slow us down,” Nicolaou said. “We’re having a good year, but without the tariffs, it could have been a phenomenal year.” Despite press releases and some evidenceof foreign firms ramping up existing facilities, it’s “ highly unlikely” any new plants could turn a profit before the tariffs fall, according to Wood MacKenzie. The Trump administration’s tariffs will ease as import duties decline5% per year until reaching 15% in 2021. Solar manufacturers outside the US (accounting for 98%of global production) are getting back on track by cutting prices and moving factories to countries unaffected by tariffs primarily aimed at China, such as Mexico and the Philippines. Wood Mackenzie reports solar installations have risen for three straight quarters, and total installed solar capacity in the US is expected to double over the next five years. Yet the industry may not reach its former glory until 2021, when installations are expected to exceed its 2016 peak for the first time

To: Snowshoe who wrote (149421)	7/2/2019 12:31:55 AM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 218043

Given that all is good, and the all-knowing / all-considering market knows all is good, we in HK have an issue ... and the governing authorities know it as well, and must make triple sure all continue to be good, especially in the legacy industrial zone immediately adjacent to the old airport :0)_ for the greater good per super hyper overarching macro discerned back in 1997 bloomberg.com Hong Kong Turns an Old Airport Into Billions Worth of Luxury Condos Shawna Kwan 2 July 2019, 05:00 GMT+8 Cranes stand at a construction site at the former Kai Tak airport area. Photographer: Eduardo Leal/Bloomberg Hong Kong’s old Kai Tak airport was famed for its hair-raising landings, as planes skimmed apartment rooftops before touching down just minutes from bustling Kowloon. Now, the site is morphing into one of the city’s biggest real estate developments with multi-million dollar apartments slowly filling up even as new parcels of land go for record prices. China Resources Land Ltd. and Poly Property Group Co. last week paid HK$12.9 billion ($1.7 billion) for a plot, an unprecedented amount from mainland developers, who snapped up almost 60% of residential land sold by the government in the first half. Roughly the size of New York’s Central Park, and jutting into Victoria Harbour just across from Hong Kong island, Kai Tak offers a rare opportunity to develop prime real estate in the center of one of the most densely populated cities on Earth. It’s also another reminder of the city’s rising inequality. Hong Kong-based developer Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. paid HK$25.2 billion for a single plot last year. That worked out at $2,265 per square foot of floor space, meaning a two-bedroom unit will probably be priced at about $2.5 million, according to Thomas Lam, an executive director at Knight Frank LLP. A three-bedroom apartment in New York’s Upper East Side costs roughly the same. “With this sort of valuation, it doesn’t sound like the area is going to emerge as a particularly affordable housing location,” said Simon Smith, head of research and consultancy at Savills Plc. “This looks like middle and upper-end housing is probably more likely.” So far, Kai Tak has contributed HK$173 billion to government coffers since land sales started in 2013, figures from Savills show. The remaining land will fetch about a further HK$110 billion, according to Knight Frank estimates. Once the entire project is complete -- sometime in the mid-2020s -- the government expects the area to house 90,000 people, along with hotels, office towers, a state-of-the-art sports stadium and parks. Kai Tak was the city’s only commercial airport from 1925 until Chek Lap Kok opened on Lantau Island in 1998. It was one of the most challenging airports in the world for pilots to land at, with planes flying so close to apartment buildings that passengers could see residents going about their daily lives, while plane-spotters lined rooftops to watch incoming aircraft. Now, the transformation is just one of the many ways Hong Kong is freeing up land in order to boost housing supply and tackle runaway property prices.The government is also considering converting farmland to residential use, burrowing underground, and even taking over part of the city’s biggest golf course for homes. The most ambitious, and controversial plan is the ‘Lantau Tomorrow Vision’ -- a proposal to reclaim 1,000 hectares of land from the sea off Lantau Island at a cost $80 billion.

To: Snowshoe who wrote (149421)	7/2/2019 1:02:21 AM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 218043

belt & road update going well projects begin to switch "on" I know, the article does not mention team china it does not need to, for it goes without saying, if solar and big, then china arabianbusiness.com <<China’s Jinko Solar Holding>> albeit the japanese and locals have skin oil the game, so that all win, except for the ones refusing to engage and partake zerohedge.com UAE Switches On World's Largest Solar Farm Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com, The United Arab Emirates have launched the largest single solar power farm in the world, the 1.18-GW Noor Abu Dhabi, Endgadget reports citing a tweet by the Abu Dhabi government. Fisher River Cree Nation goes solar to support Manitoba’s grid The facility, which dwarfs the largest solar farm in the United States - the 569-MW Solar Star - is only comparable to solar parks, which combine several separate solar farms. It can supply electricity to 90,000 people, according to official information, from as many as 3.2 million solar panels. As a result, it would offset emissions amounting to 1 million metric tons, which is the equivalent of removing 200,000 cars from the road. True to its reputation as being a large spender on various cutting-edge projects, the UAE is not stopping at Noor Abu Dhabi. Earlier this year, the Abu Dhabi Minister of Climate Change and Environment announced another, bigger, solar project. It would have a capacity of 2 GW, the official said without going into any further detail. The only project that would be bigger than this one, is Saudi Arabia’s 2.6-GW planned facility in Mecca. While the Middle East is hardly the first location that springs to mind when one thinks about solar power and other renewable energy sources, the region has been changing, slowly but surely. The International Renewable Energy Agency released a report in February saying the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council alone had plans to install as much as 7 GW in renewable power generation capacity by the early 2020s. An earlier report from IRENA said GCC could save some 354 million barrels of oil equivalent by switching to renewables for domestic consumption by 2030. That would constitute a 23-percent decline in domestic oil and gas consumption with more of the commodities going for exports: Saudi Arabia is pursuing this strategy of reducing domestic consumption of fossil fuels with a view to boosting exports. Among the members of the GCC, the UAE is by far the best performer: it is home to almost 79 percent of the total installed solar capacity in the group. It even boasts renewable energy projects that do not require subsidies to be competitive.